Author
Topic: Anime/Manga Journal

Many years ago, my father left for his vacation with his new sweetheart. My father had a cat that needed taking care of while he was away. Back then, I was still in primary school (not sure which grade). Since it was summer and I had no school, the idea came up that I would basically live there for the week taking care of the cat and house. At this point, I'll point out that I lived with my mother after the divorce and would normally only see my dad one weekend out of two. Since it felt like one of those crazy movie plots, I accepted. As a kid, spending an ENTIRE week free from any adult was just too awesome to pass.

My father left enough food in the fridge and a lot of frozen meal he prepared. He also left me one hundred dollar on the table for an emergency if needed. After everything was taken care off and I had understood what my tasks were for the week, he left.

Back then, I had no idea what animes or mangas were like. In fact, I wasn't even really into RPGs back then either (I like to think I was stupid as a child). On the second day, I'm not too sure how, while surfing the Internet, I landed on images of Neon Genesis Evangelion. I thought these looked pretty cool.

From there I started looking around to see if I could find it. Remarkably, as a child, I somehow found a private website really well hidden on the Internet (actually, it STILL exists even as of today and I'm pretty sure only a handful currently know of its existence) with no login or password; just plain directly downloadable animes. Lucky enough, the episodes hosted there were all fansubbed. I then proceeded to download the first episode.

After hours of downloading, I finally watched it.It was then that something awoke inside of me.This thing was incredible!It was so good!I could hardly believe something could be this good!

Like a new drug addict, I needed more of this... I wanted to watch the whole thing.

Back then, the Internet was very slow. The videos were about 35 mb (huge), and I had a 3.5 k/s connection and the servers were also very prompt to drop the connection. The very long list of rules on the main page were very strict and the server would kick your IP out if you broke any. I carefully set up a download resumer and created a whole process for the downloads while making sure I would not break any of the downloading rules. As such, I was getting an episode about every 3-4 hours. I would literally stand in front of the computer looking at the progress bar only to watch the episode immediately when it finished downloading. Mornings were the best part because I would have two episodes to watch while eating breakfast (worth mentioning that I would wake up in the middle of the night to start the next one and then go back to sleep).

Henceforth started a crazy cycle of eating, quickly taking care of the cat and house, only to wait and watch. By the last day, I was dead tired and watched the last episode the last night before my dad came back the morning after.

The surge of freedom mixed with the discovery of something I truly became to love made that week one of the best moments of my life.

Now, guess what I'll answer you if you ask me "Do you like Evangelion?"

Many years ago, my father left for his vacation with his new sweetheart. My father had a cat that needed taking care of while he was away. Back then, I was still in primary school (not sure which grade). Since it was summer and I had no school, the idea came up that I would basically live there for the week taking care of the cat and house. At this point, I'll point out that I lived with my mother after the divorce and would normally only see my dad one weekend out of two. Since it felt like one of those crazy movie plots, I accepted. As a kid, spending an ENTIRE week free from any adult was just too awesome to pass.

My father left enough food in the fridge and a lot of frozen meal he prepared. He also left me one hundred dollar on the table for an emergency if needed. After everything was taken care off and I had understood what my tasks were for the week, he left.

Back then, I had no idea what animes or mangas were like. In fact, I wasn't even really into RPGs back then either (I like to think I was stupid as a child). On the second day, I'm not too sure how, while surfing the Internet, I landed on images of Neon Genesis Evangelion. I thought these looked pretty cool.

From there I started looking around to see if I could find it. Remarkably, as a child, I somehow found a private website really well hidden on the Internet (actually, it STILL exists even as of today and I'm pretty sure only a handful currently know of its existence) with no login or password; just plain directly downloadable animes. Lucky enough, the episodes hosted there were all fansubbed. I then proceeded to download the first episode.

After hours of downloading, I finally watched it.It was then that something awoke inside of me.This thing was incredible!It was so good!I could hardly believe something could be this good!

Like a new drug addict, I needed more of this... I wanted to watch the whole thing.

Back then, the Internet was very slow. The videos were about 35 mb (huge), and I had a 3.5 k/s connection and the servers were also very prompt to drop the connection. The very long list of rules on the main page were very strict and the server would kick your IP out if you broke any. I carefully set up a download resumer and created a whole process for the downloads while making sure I would not break any of the downloading rules. As such, I was getting an episode about every 3-4 hours. I would literally stand in front of the computer looking at the progress bar only to watch the episode immediately when it finished downloading. Mornings were the best part because I would have two episodes to watch while eating breakfast (worth mentioning that I would wake up in the middle of the night to start the next one and then go back to sleep).

Henceforth started a crazy cycle of eating, quickly taking care of the cat and house, only to wait and watch. By the last day, I was dead tired and watched the last episode the last night before my dad came back the morning after.

The surge of freedom mixed with the discovery of something I truly became to love made that week one of the best moments of my life.

Now, guess what I'll answer you if you ask me "Do you like Evangelion?"

Evangelion with all its flaws as well as the multiple "bat shit crazy" attempts at trying to have a coherent ending land in the realm of "favorites" for me.

Oddly enough however, there is no nostalgic value in it for me. I missed Eva as a kid and it was actually this and serial experiments lain that I discovered in 2008 that got me watching anime again as an adult. I liked both series so much, I sport tattoos of both (in fact half of my left arm is dedicated to lain)... the Eva one isn't finished I'm afraid... I'm doing it on myself (or I started it) and it is hard to tattoo yourself... as such I have to finish it-LoL

Logged

In this world is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcedental entity or law? is it like the hand of god hovering above? Perhaps Man has no control even over his own will…

Evangelion with all its flaws as well as the multiple "bat shit crazy" attempts at trying to have a coherent ending land in the realm of "favorites" for me.

The ending of the TV series and the Death & Rebirth film were a recopilation from previous episodes. All the "weird shit" is just there for narrative reasons and to play around with the audience, I also remember reading that Gainax run out of money in the last two episodes of the TV series and that's why those two episodes are the way they are (ignoring the whole thing of Hideaki Anno suffering depression directing the series at the time).

The End of Evangelion film is the ending of the TV series, the manga is pretty much its own thing and the Rebuild films are just a more positive take on what Evangelion is about (haven't been in the mood to see Eva 3.33 yet though).

Evangelion with all its flaws as well as the multiple "bat shit crazy" attempts at trying to have a coherent ending land in the realm of "favorites" for me.

The ending of the TV series and the Death & Rebirth film were a recopilation from previous episodes. All the "weird shit" is just there for narrative reasons and to play around with the audience, I also remember reading that Gainax run out of money in the last two episodes of the TV series and that's why those two episodes are the way they are (ignoring the whole thing of Hideaki Anno suffering depression directing the series at the time).

The End of Evangelion film is the ending of the TV series, the manga is pretty much its own thing and the Rebuild films are just a more positive take on what Evangelion is about (haven't been in the mood to see Eva 3.33 yet though).

IIRC I read that their money was out, but also their budget was slashed with the violence of Shinji's EVA unit going nuts on auto-pilot against Toji's unit (remember? When "EVA-Guts" were thrown around all over the place?? =/ )

Yeah so the TV series was a huge disappointing end, but I thought the 1997(?) anime film was pretty stupendous. Hopefully the final Eva movie can uh...be better too.

@Annubis - I watched the entire Evangelion Series during a very difficult time in my life, and honestly, I believe it helped me through it. To put it simply, I loved every bit of Evangelion, even if most of that is just nostalgia. It's an obviously flawed show, right down to the ending, but even that ending I watched over and over again, and enjoyed every minute of it. Definitely one I'll always remember, during a time I'd otherwise rather forget.

Of the 26 episodes of the TV series 24 of those show a narrative and after that the last two episodes are a recopilation of previous episodes with the last minutes of the last episode being like redemption for Shinji (and the audience which mainly were depressed people which is ironic) to free themselves from Evangelion and start to live a new life enjoying something else.

Though old habits never die and people wanted more Evangelion because of that "religious experience" that many had with the TV series, then Gainax did The End of Evangelion film giving closure to the TV series in the most definite way possible.

After that people wanted more... even with the manga still in production in those years.

The Rebuild films are suppose to be like that "religious experience" offered in the 90's but in a more positive manner in comparison of how negative the entire experience of the TV series was (or is depending who you ask).

So last night I started watching Full Metal Panic again. Man, I've already been waiting 8 years for a fourth series. When will KyoAni stop fucking with me and stop producing all of those moe anime and go back to the FMP franchise?